The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Saying that Israel was “maybe the only country in which another people
is under occupation and in which these people have no rights,” Huldai
continued:

We can’t keep these
people in a reality in which they are occupied and expect them to reach
the conclusion that everything is all right and that they can continue
living this way…. I know the reality and understand that leaders with
courage need to aspire to reach [an agreement] and not just talk about
it.

Considering that Huldai is a public official, mayor of a
major city, it is putting it mildly to say that his words were full of
ignorance and distortions. Israel is not an occupier in the West Bank. There are, however, numerous occupied peoples
in the world. Palestinians in the West Bank have the prerogative to
elect their own government and many other rights. The large majority of
Palestinians—and certainly the terrorists among them—reject any Israeli claim to any land.
So many attempts—by Israeli, American, and other leaders—to reach an
agreement with the Palestinians have been turned down cold that any
realistic Israeli leader understands that, at least for the time being,
it’s an impossible goal.

But beyond those points, there’s
another: shooting up people in a café is a crime, known as murder. No
claim of political grievance is exoneration for murder. That point is
widely understood in civilized societies—though not by the mayor of Tel
Aviv.

Huldai’s words, which sparked fury, would be less
significant if they were an aberration. Unfortunately, statements of
that ilk are typical of the Israeli left—including, amazing as it may
seem, in the case of left-wing politicians seeking to gain public
favor.

Ehud Barak, a lifelong Laborite, is a former prime
minister and defense minister. Before leaving politics in 2013, he was
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense minister for four years. He
was seen as Netanyahu’s close ally and fellow hawk on the Iranian issue,
and worked hard—even dividing his party at one point—to keep
Netanyahu’s coalition in power.

In a speech on June 16,
Barak—who, as Netanyahu’s defense minister, had warned steadily that
time was running out to stop Iran’s nuclear program—said that Israel
faced “no existential threats.” He went on to accuse Netanyahu of
“Hitlerizing” all threats to Israel, saying:

Hitlerization by the prime minister cheapens the Holocaust…. Our situation is grave even without [comparisons to] Hitler….

Barak, however, went on to give his own characterization of the current situation in Israel:

Only a blind person or a sheep, an ignoramus or someone jaded, can’t
see the erosion of democracy and the “budding fascism.…” If it looks
like budding fascism, walks like budding fascism and quacks like budding
fascism, that’s the situation…. In capitals around the world—in London
and Washington, in Berlin and Paris, in Moscow and Beijing—no leader
believes a word coming out of Netanyahu’s mouth or his government’s.

If it sounds unhinged, vicious, and appropriate for the BDS (boycott,
divestment, and sanctions) movement, that indeed is what it was. And
while Barak, 74, disavowed any further political ambitions, he also
said:

I call on the government to come to its
senses, to get back on track immediately…. If it does not do that, it
will be incumbent upon all of us—yes, all of us—to get up from our
seats…and bring it down via popular protest and via the ballot box
before it’s too late.

A week later, there is no sign that “all
of us” are doing anything of the sort. Barak’s words have been
dismissed by some as an attempt by a sidelined, no longer relevant
politician to get back in the limelight.

But Isaac Herzog,
opposition leader and Barak’s current replacement as Labor Party leader,
is an active Israeli politician who still has—or claims to
have—political ambitions. Strangely, then, Herzog’s rhetorical style is
no more pleasing to the great majority of Israeli ears than Mayor
Huldai’s or former minister Barak’s.

In October 2015, Herzog attacked
Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, telling Netanyahu to
“go home” and take Bennett with him, since their “policies have failed,
and are leading us to another Masada”—referring to the mountain fortress
where in 73 CE a Jewish group committed mass suicide rather than be
taken captive by the Romans.

Herzog added:

Netanyahu claims to be “managing” the conflict, along with Bennett.
The way you are handling the conflict has turned into a knife to stab us
in the back, a knife in the back of Israelis.

Now it turns out that, before the March 2015 elections, Herzog offered Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas a deal
in which Israel would have ceded virtually the entire West Bank, agreed
to divide Jerusalem, and kept only a “symbolic” military presence in
the strategically crucial Jordan Valley.

Herzog, true to form, had a ready justification:

After rounds of wars and funerals nearly every year and over the past
decade, I won’t listen to the mantra that threats can only be subdued
through military force…. The right always offers us war and then runs to
sign peace treaties. We are just offering to reverse the order and
prevent hundreds of fathers and mothers from visiting military
cemeteries. The right should also consider this.

Herzog said that in a report from June 19. Two days later it was reported
that the Israeli left—which lost in a landslide in 2015—had fared even
worse in a new poll, “crashing” and “imploding.” Herzog’s Labor Party
had plummeted from 24 seats in the current Knesset to 9, with the whole
bloc getting 14 seats in the 120-member Knesset, or at most 34 if one
counts the Yesh Atid party—which many consider centrist—as left-wing.

The Israeli left has, of course, other problems besides its rhetorical
style. Most of its members no longer claim to be socialist. Israelis
rightly view its “peace” ideology as shrill and outmoded. Opposite the
repeatedly elected Netanyahu—who runs Israel skillfully as a pragmatic
centrist—the left, and particularly Labor, appears to have no clear
purpose or coherent critique to offer.

And yet, with all that,
the Israeli left seems unable to absorb the fact that blaming Israelis
for terror attacks, accusing them of “budding fascism,” painting their
leaders as back-stabbers and engines of war, and trying to scare them
with talk of “military cemeteries” is also no way to make a positive
impression on them. One can wait years for the left to stop striking out
blindly and viciously and instead try some introspection. It doesn’t
happen.

P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Beersheva and author of the book Choosing Life in Israel. His memoir, Destination Israel: Coming of Age and Finding Peace in the Middle East, is forthcoming from Liberty Island later this year.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263258/israeli-left-implodes-still-doesnt-understand-why-p-david-hornik Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.